Melanie Harvey: We can't do without social media.. but we can do without its darker side

Elise Christie was victim of Twitter abuse (Image: David Gray/Reuters)

Share

Get daily updates directly to your inbox

Thank you for subscribing!

Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email

NEKNOMINATION spreading like a rampant virus, Olympic athletes receiving threats and a woman losing hundreds of “friends” because she showed off the scars of a year of cancer treatment.

Social media hasn’t had a very good week has it? But still it rolls on, overtaking every part of our lives, providing our news, replacing face-to- face communication, filling our every waking moment with a link to other people.

That’s progress and, just like text messages replaced phone calls and emails relegated letters and cards, technology moves on and we need to move with it.

I love real friendships, conversation and chatting over a coffee or a glass of wine.

But I also love the opportunity to keep up with events, be introduced to something new, watch a video, hear a new song and find out about things that are happening in real time when I am on the bus, via my phone.

But when social media gets used as a coward’s way to hit out at people or air unacceptable views and behaviour, it all goes wrong.

Sending anonymous threats to a woman who has trained for four years for a chance of Olympic glory is a case in point. Speed skater Elise Christie was blamed for a spectacular crash in the 500m short track final.

Sporting rivalries are intense and fans of her rivals started abuse that spread like wildfire, got completely out of hand and resulted in her deleting her Twitter account.

Another woman who has experienced the dark side of social media is Beth Whaanga.

The 32-year-old posted a series of pictures on Facebook, showing the scars on her body resulting from intense treatment for cancer. The images showed the toll taken by a double mastectomy, breast reconstruction and a hysterectomy. She hoped her bravery would help other women realise the importance of carrying out regular self-examination.

It certainly stopped me in my tracks. Beth was using social media to do good. Sadly, people then abused it to do the complete opposite, deserting her as a friend and inconceivably branding the images pornographic.

Elsewhere, young people are setting each other online dares to pour booze and other unmentionables down their necks, before throwing up or throwing themselves into water.

Personally, I don’t want to see a young kid drinking himself into a stupor before vomiting all over himself. I don’t want to read abuse slung at a dedicated athlete. I don’t even want to see dancing cats.

But I do want to see more people like Beth Whaanga. Without Facebook we probably wouldn’t know her story.

I think even she would argue that the abuse she has endured was worth it if she gets her message over and a life is saved. And that definitely gets a “like” from me.